Arianna listened to Hector’s speech, her eyes scanning the large crowd of trainees around her. It was a big group, but the four sectors evenly split them into twenty-five each. Still, it was too much for Arianna’s mind to handle. Castiel noticed it the instant that the group arrived and relieved Arianna of the thoughts of every Merc or to-be-Merc at the training grounds. She found her gaze catching the back of a man’s head. He seemed familiar, but just before she could get a good look at him, Hector finished his speech and the trainees began to split apart. She decided to find the man at another time and turned to gaze upon the four stations. She’d been sent to the first station; fortunately for her, it was a good station to begin the day. 

Arianna began her first day of training with a few stretches to make sure that she didn’t pull or tear any muscles. From there, she picked up one of the twenty-five jump ropes hanging on a rack and began to swing it, jumping lightly to avoid tangling her legs in the rope. She was absorbed in old memories as she jumped, remembering her days as a young child learning how to jump rope. The wave of nostalgia was bittersweet. After jumping rope for a while, Arianna moved on to jogging through the trail, enjoying the man-made forest. It was a relief from the rubble and crumbled buildings above them. She did a few laps in a jog, marveling at how she was just now sweating and running out of breath. The stamina that being a host gave her was a big improvement from her physical state before the Void Gate opened. She paused for a few gulps of water before running a few laps. She found herself at the end of her second running lap when the whistle was blown and they were told to move stations. 

The walk between station one and two was a good time for Arianna to take a breath and drink some more water. While the rest of the group began to find their respective weight training stations, Arianna had no clue where to start. It was only when she noticed a few mats that she sprouted an idea. She laid the mat out and began to mimic the poses her mother used to do when she was doing yoga. Arianna guessed that since it was the beginning of her training, she could start out by working on the strength of her mind and flexibility instead of jumping right into lifting weights, like most of the other trainees. After all, most of her abilities were towards stretching her mind to the limit and being quick enough to dodge attacks and make her own.

At the end of station two, Arianna made her way towards station three. She’d watched the trainees at this station while she did her yoga and was curious to learn such maneuvers. First, she listened to a lecture about how to read the Mercenary maps and the basic hand gestures. They then were assigned numbers and a group, and set out on their first simulation of maneuvers. Arianna remembered the signals and memorized them by heart. She responded well to the signals, but overall knew that she had a lot to do when it came to moving around the group. By the end, she was ready for a tall glass of glacier water.

After a hearty water break, Arianna moved onto station four, the one that she had been most worried about. Her fighting technique was nothing compared to the Golden Mercenaries, and she knew it was going to be tough to be able to handle the blows of the military soldiers, if she were ever in a fight with one. She was taught a few basic moves through a slow training process by some volunteer Mercenaries, and once they thought she knew the moves well enough they put her up against a few other trainees. Her quickness helped her a lot, but the sheer strength of some of the other mercenaries was enough to overtake her. By the end of the section, she was lying on her back, wincing from the last battle. The trainee that had been fighting with her helped her up. “Don’t be so disheartened. After a few weeks of training in section two, you’ll be strong as me, but also faster than you are now. You’ll be one hell of a soldier,” the girl said, smiling as they took their water break and headed back to section one. Arianna smiled softly and stuck to the girl’s side throughout training, even daring to find out her weight limit on every weight machine they had. Arianna found that she could lift significantly more than she thought she could, but as she noticed the weights that some of the other trainees were lifting she realized that she had a lot to make up for.

Throughout the day, Arianna began to improve in each station. As the whistle was blown at the 2 o’clock mark, Arianna felt confident that she had learnt a lot in the day’s rigorous training exercise. She watched as the non-host trainees split off, looking rather relieved and exhausted and couldn’t help but feel jealous. She drank an exaggeratingly large amount of water before pouring a little down her back to cool off. Then, she looked around at all the hosts left in the training grounds and began to grow curious. What did Hector have in store for them?